


Everything Starts Somewhere

by GenerallyHuxurious (GallifreyanOmnishambles)



Series: Kylux Cryptids AU [26]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Butts, Camping, Classic Cars, Comedy, Cryptozoology, Dick Jokes, Horror, Hux Wrote A Book, Idiots in Love, Kylo Ren Has a Big Dick, Kylo Still Has The Force, M/M, Miscommunication, Monster Hunters, Monsters, Mystery, Paranormal Investigators, Penis Size, Penises, Road Trips, Tattoos, The Five-Legged Ohio Assman, With Apologies To The State Of Ohio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 13:42:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12343830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanOmnishambles/pseuds/GenerallyHuxurious
Summary: Major Donal Hux has finally written a book about his ghost & cryptid hunting adventures with Kylo Ren. The only problem is that everyone thinks it is fiction. Except the person who will be interviewing him today. They know all about the paranormal. Perhaps Hux has a new story to tell?Part of this story takes place immediately after the events of The Eldritch Effect, but it isn't necessary to read that story first.





	Everything Starts Somewhere

The coffee shop was smaller than Hux had expected. 

Of course, a town with a population of barely four thousand couldn’t possibly support some huge multilevel caffeine emporium, but he had hoped that the interview would be conducted at a more comfortable distance from the espresso machine. At times the cashier was so close to the back of his chair that he swore he could feel her breath on the back of his neck.

The cramped location wasn’t helping his anxiety, and neither was Kylo. 

He shouldn’t have been anxious. 

He’d been an Army Officer. He’d commanded dozens of paratroopers in life-or-death situations. He’d faced- and then wisely fled from- a werewolf while he was still in a wheelchair after nearly losing his legs in a war zone. 

This was just an interview for a magazine, nothing more.

A magazine with an international readership.

A magazine he’d been reading his entire life, that had influenced so much of his childhood.

A magazine Kylo had apparently never heard of, and wasn’t in the least impressed by. 

Hux shouldn’t really have been offended by that. His own family covered more than a page of Who’s Who; Kylo’s parents appeared in The New York Times at least once a week- this was practically the British version of National Enquirer. In the scheme of things it wasn’t really an achievement. 

But still, to see his photo in the Fortean News. To actually talk to someone about his book who didn’t think it was a clever work of fiction masquerading as fact. It was a dream come true. A very silly dream, but a dream nonetheless.

His publisher hadn’t objected to the book’s debut appearance being in that venerable paranormal periodical. She’d thought it a work of genius- an extra layer of intrigue and deception for this ‘supposed’ diary of a pair of supernatural hunters. Hux had given up trying to convince her that it was autobiographical about five seconds after he’d seen the size of the pay cheque. For that kind of money he’d buy a second hand Impala and let people address him as Dean if it meant he kept getting paid. 

“I’ve got a triple shot latte with pumpkin spice syrup for ‘Donut’?” The cashier called out behind him. 

Kylo sniggered and dropped the dice he’d been surreptitiously levitating over the palm of his hand.

“That should be ‘Donal’,” Hux said with a sigh. 

She peered at the note taped to the mug. “No, it definitely says ‘Donut’.”

It wasn’t worth the effort to argue, but it was also far beneath his dignity to give in - not least because Kylo would never let it go- So Hux just crossed his arms and went back to anxiously staring at the door.

“Awww come on,  _ Donut _ ,  _ pumpkin _ , don’t be like that,” Kylo drawled, his eyes glittering with mirth while she wandered around the room asking each table if they’d ordered what was obviously Hux’ drink. 

Without looking round Hux silently gave him the finger.

“You’re such a grump! Excuse me? Miss?” Kylo waved at the cashier and pointed to the space in front of Hux. “Here please.”

“If you’re going to give a fake name you really need to remember what it was,” She scolded before turning back to the counter and picking up another drink. “Americano for ‘Kilo’?”

“Aww man, really?” Kylo raised his hand again with much less smugness than the last time.

Hux didn’t bother to laugh, but he smirked loudly as he sipped his drink.

The door opened with a burst of humid South Carolina air and he forgot all about names. The interviewer had arrived at last.

She looked exactly like he’d expected a reporter for a supernatural magazine to look- thick bangs, blue highlights in her hair, an ‘I Want To Believe’ shirt, and half a dozen pop-culture tattoos. 

Hux watched her nervously as she jostled with an middleaged man in an awful white suit at the counter. His picture was inside the book cover - his and Kylo’s - but he had a terrible fear that somehow he wouldn’t be recognised. 

He tried to smile as she turned away from the counter but she just frowned at him and walked right on by. Perhaps his fears were well founded.

“Don-el?” The man in the white suit was peering at him with the expression of a day drinker who hadn’t started on the scotch yet and was trying to fill in the gaps with caffeine. 

He pronounced Hux’ name like he was Superman’s long lost brother. Hux instantly hated him.

“Yeah?”

“Orson Krennic, Fortean News.”

Well, every dream had to come crashing down. Apparently the demolition of Hux’ ego would be conducted by a tired man with questionable taste in clothes and a vaguely Australian accent. 

Whatever his disappointment, the manners his grandfather had scared into him took control of Hux’ body and extended a hand.

“Major Donal Hux. This is my partner- Kylo Ren.”

The man gave Kylo a look of baffled distaste. “Oh. He’s real too? I thought… nevermind.”

Kylo stuck his tongue out at him. There was a day-glo orange skull bead on his piercing today. It matched the tiny skeletons hanging from his tunnels. It was quite a look. 

“Orson? Is that after Orson Wells?” Hux said in a conversational attempt to distract from his partner’s bad manners. 

“Nah, Mork and Mindy,” the man said, falling into a chair with a distinct lack of grace. Seeing Hux’ skeptical eyebrow he continued, “Never let a 10 year old choose their own witness protection name.”

Hux and Kylo shared a look. 

At last Hux said, “I’ll uh, bear that in mind. Thanks.”

Orson pulled a battered notebook out of an inside pocket. 

“So, you’re the real deal huh? I know your publisher is trying to sell it as fiction but it’s pretty obvious it’s all genuine. Well, except that guy.” Orson paused to point a pen at Kylo. It was the kind where if you tipped it a woman’s clothes fell off. “I thought he was the obvious bullshit distraction.”

“Oh well, fuck you very much.”

“Shush,” Hux said blandly. “Yeah. I mean, names and precise locations changed to protect the innocent, but yeah.” 

It felt good to say it and be believed. The conversation wandered for a while- his military career, his arrival in the US, the early days with Kylo that turned into this annual eight month road trip that was only half about following the warm weather. 

While he was amiable, Orson still had the air of a man who has seen more and knows more than anyone else. He kept trying to trip Hux up, referencing obscure or contested knowledge that a casual dabbler in the supernatural might not know and it began to grate on Hux’ nerves. He wasn’t here to play paranormal Trivial Pursuit.

“Have you ever been in on the genesis of a cryptid?” Orson asked half an hour into the unravelling interview. “You know, the early days, when something was first witnessed? Or do you wait til there's enough evidence for you to investigate it?”

That felt like a jibe. 

Hux didn’t like the implication that he was standing on the shoulders of other people who’d done all the hard work. He hadn’t dragged his crippled arse through swamps, lakes, and haunted ruins just to have his integrity questioned by a man who looked like an early 80s lounge singer.

Hux glanced at Kylo. “You could say that…”

Kylo had stopped paying attention five minutes into the interview and was instead staring blankly out of the window. 

Realising that he was being addressed he raised one eyebrow, making his scar twist.

“Orson wanted to know if we’d ever seen the beginning of a new cryptid,” Hux repeated with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “I was going to tell him about the one from last year.”

Instead of replying Kylo only raised his chin defiantly.

Hux’ smile widened, turning a little mean at the edges. 

“I think you had a quarter column about it in the magazine a few issues ago,” He said to Orson before turning back to Kylo. “What was that first town called in Ohio?”

“There are no towns in Ohio, only corn.”

“Kylo, don’t be stup…”

“COOORRRRRNNNNNN!!!”

The cry went on for far longer than necessary and attracted the attention of every other patron in the coffee shop. Hux kicked the sole of Kylo’s boot in irritation.

“You’re such a prick. It was something European. Venice or something.”

* * *

The town had been called Athens, in Athens County because people were imaginative like that.

It hadn’t been their destination. They hadn’t really had one in mind beyond getting away from North Carolina as fast as they could. Kylo had vaguely intended to get to Kalamazoo because he was convinced that the name would attract strange happenings, but Hux didn’t care where they went so long as they kept moving. 

At first they’d planned to stay on the road and take turns driving but after seven hours hunger and post adrenaline fatigue forced them to pull over for the night. 

Hux hadn’t bothered to make a note of the rest stop, though he knew it was on the I-33. He’d just crawled into the backseat and slept like the dead for twelve hours, not caring if his knees seized up too much to function the next day. 

Kylo had slept in the front and the night had passed in unremarkable peace.

Things had started to get weird when they somehow ended up in a hot dog joint for breakfast. 

While Kylo tried to fit four footlongs into his mouth at once, and Hux tried valiantly to pretend he wasn’t with him, two truckers at the next table began to argue about the strange thing one of them had seen at the rest stop the night before.

“I’m telling you Bodhi it was bigger than a man. I ain’t never seen a man that big in my life, and I sure as hell ain’t seen one that wide!” 

The man called ‘Bodhi’ was the only one of the pair that Hux could see clearly. A slight man with long hair and frankly gorgeous eyes, he was picking at a chicken burger and watching his companion practically inhaling hot dogs with a sceptical look. 

“I dunno Jek, you’re pretty wide.”

“Fuck you man, I meant across the shoulders. Dude, that thing was wider than Captain America. And anyway- it was grey. People aren’t grey.”

“Unless they’re dead.”

“Dead folks don’t walk around with their butt out at interstate rest stops,” Jek said with an air of triumph that was spoiled by the hot dog he was waving in the air to make his point. 

“They do on the Walking Dead, and I know you have the whole boxset in the back of your cab.” Bodhi retorted. “You fell asleep with your laptop on again.”

There was a pause filled with chewing, then Jek said, “ain’t nothing in Walking Dead with three legs.”

“Oh it had three legs now too? There isn’t anything in nature with three legs! Three is not a standard number of limbs.”

“Hey, there’s lot of things with three legs! Puppies that can’t cross the street right. Lopsided spiders. Handicapped octopuses!”

“I don’t think anyone is going to mistake any of those for a giant butt monster. Anyway, they’re all things that usually have more than three. If it were man shaped it’d have two legs and two arms, taking away one of those wouldn’t give it three legs.”

“No, no, no,” Jek waved his hands dismissively and then reached for Bodhi’s basket of fries. He stole three and arranged them in a tripod shape. “It looked like that.”

“Don’t touch my fries, man.”

“I’m just showing…”

“Don’t touch my fucking food.”

Hux had turned away then, the interesting portion of the conversation apparently over and done with. 

Kylo had taken the breaded fish out of his fish sandwich.

“Really? Really?!” 

Kylo had just shrugged, his mouth still stuffed with stolen food.

Neither of them much wanted to get back into the car just then, so they’d wandered around the centre of town until dark, enjoying the chance to walk around without an oppressive air of blood magic all around them. 

They’d even tried to get a motel, but there’d been some reason that rooms weren’t available. Hux couldn’t remember now. Whatever the reason they’d ended up back on the road and spent another night sleeping in a rest stop.

The second rest stop was outside a town called Lima, which had resulted in a spirited but pointless argument about pronunciation - LEE-ma versus lie-MA - that had petered out sometime around midnight. 

They were out of Ohio and eating lunch in Fort Wayne, Michigan before Facebook made things weird by bringing up a news story about a ‘humanoid-looking creature sighted in Ohio’. 

The article was posted by a cryptozoological site that Hux had been following for a while without much luck, but the details were worryingly similar to the creature he’d heard described at the hot dog joint. 

He looked up the location of the sighting, expecting it to be near Athens. He nearly choked on his coffee when he realised it was the same town they’d slept near the night before. 

Pulling out one of his notebooks Hux carefully noted down the truckers description - tall, wide, grey, naked - and compared it to the article. 

> _ The man described it as a 6-feet-tall creature covered in “what looked like grey or pink” skin with long ears “like a doberman”. Its body, he said, was “muscular as hell in a full stride”.  _
> 
> _ “I only saw the back of it, but it had humans legs and ass. I could see the striations in its back, the thing was definitely muscular.” _

It could well be the same thing. Hux felt sick and unsettled. 

Two sightings, two nights apart and close their location.

He was at least a little reassured that the second incident had been witnessed on the edge of a beanfield, something he hadn’t noticed near the rest stop.

A quick search on Reddit undid all that and made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. There’d been four other sightings- one in Athens and three in Lima- over the last two nights. Two of those had been along the I-33 near the Lima rest stop. One of them included the third leg. There was precedence for such a creature- the so-called ‘Enfield Horror’ had been a tripede but it was obscure enough that it probably wouldn’t influence the witnesses.

He could have mentioned it to Kylo, he should have mentioned it, but they’d been through so much stress in the weeks before that it didn’t seem fair to upset him. 

When they’d ended up stopping for the night at a welcome center by the side of the I-69, much to Kylo’s delight, Hux had found himself too distracted to really enjoy himself.

He slept fitfully, waking every time he heard an animal noise outside the car and running his mind ragged wondering whether the doors would stand up an attack from whatever the creature was supposed to be. He’d spent so long on high alert recently  that he couldn’t imagine any other motive but violence from this thing.

Whatever it was that woke him he never found out, but at 3:03am Hux found himself sitting bolt upright in the backseat, staring at a terrifying figure outside the window. 

Details were hard to see in the dark, but the thing seemed to be about knee height, pale grey, and moving slowly on all fours. 

No. All fives.

Hux blinked and rubbed his eyes.

The windows of the Fury had steamed up in the night, making the view beyond the car doubly hazy, but there definitely seemed to be three back legs on that animal.

Suddenly the creature shifted and stretched, huge and tall and brilliantly white in the full moonlight. 

It was only years of muscle memory that drove Hux to lift his phone and snap a picture before the thing ran full pelt into the trees. It vanished almost instantly as if it had never been there at all.

“Holy fuck,” Hux breathed quietly. “Kylo, holy fuck.”

Kylo didn’t reply. 

“Kylo?”

The front seat of the car was empty. 

Hux was not an idiot. Not only had he seen more than his fair share of horror movies, he’d also been combat trained by people who wanted him to stay alive. 

The car was secure. Outside was not. 

He wasn’t fully mobile thanks to his knee injuries and three nights spent sleeping on a leather bench seat. Whatever the thing was outside, it had been fast. 

He wouldn’t find Kylo by risking himself, he’d probably just end up with both of them dead in a ditch somewhere.

Google said there were four hours to sunrise. He’d just have to wait.

Hux had resolved to spend the night watching vigilantly out the window with his phone at the ready in case he came back.

Instead he woke at 8am with a crick in his neck and Kylo cuddled up against his side. 

There had been no sign of the strange creature at all. It all felt like a dream.

It had probably been a dream.

Better not to mention it. So he didn’t.

Kalamazoo had been a disappointingly ordinary looking town until Hux noticed a sign for an air and space museum. Perfect.

There was nothing like looking at old planes to help Hux get over a bad night. Even Kylo didn’t grumble after he found a photograph of his grandfather in one of the 1950s displays.

Even better the museum was next to a Days Inn with real beds and showers. 

Hux had all but thrown the contents of his wallet at the desk clerk in his haste to finally get some real rest, and accidentally reserved them the best suite in the hotel. He didn’t care.

Kylo had flopped dramatically onto a bed the instant Hux opened the door. The movement sent up a gust of air that carried with it a more than ripe smell.

“Oh my god, I stink,” Kylo groaned with his arm over his face.

“Shower then. And stop sniffing your own armpits.”

Kylo slowly kicked off his boots and socks to reveal feet so filthy they were grey. “I don’t wanna. I’m too tired.”

At first Hux didn’t reply. He was too busy staring at Kylo with wide eyes.

“You should come in the shower with me. Keep me entertained.”

Still Hux didn’t reply. Instead he reached for his phone and opened the photo album. The last photo had been taken in the dark, from inside the car, through windows streaked with condensation. There was a figure standing huge and broad just by the trees. It was a bad photo, but it was still possible to make out the pattern of tattoos across back and thighs of the ‘creature’.

On the bed Kylo yawned and stretched like some ridiculous cat. “Oh man, I haven’t been this tired since I was 14 and sleepwalked all the way to Napeague.”

“What?” Hux asked weakly.

“Didn’t I tell you about that?” Kylo grinned and sat up, pulling his tank top over his head in one easy movement. “The cops brought me home wrapped in a towel because my clothes disappeared along the way.”

Kylo shimmed out his shorts, revealing the reason several people- including Hux- had mistakenly thought the creature had five legs.

“Actually, you know what? I’m going in the shower first.” Hux said decisively, his phone case creaking in his hand as he felt his fists involuntarily tighten. “Alone. You can sit right there, google ‘the ohio assman’, and then you can think of a way to apologise.”

Hux showered quickly and efficiently, refusing to think about the stupid farce that had been the last three days. He’d almost succeeded in banishing the whole sorry mess by the time he was drying his hair, but the process was interrupted by a knock on the door of the suite.

“Hi, I’ve got two extra large meatlovers pizzas here for, uh, ‘the… five-legged Ohio assman’?”

“KYLO!!!”

* * *

“You’re such a prick. It was something European. Venice or something.”

Hux looked at Kylo again, taking in the trembling bottom lip, and reconsidered. There were some things he’d rather not share with a man like Orson Krennic, and the image of his husband running naked through the woods in his sleep was one of them.

“You know what? I don’t actually remember where it was,” Hux said, “and I don’t want to spoil the stories that’ll appear in book two by giving away too many details, especially if they’re incorrect.” 

He stood and held a hand out toward the journalist. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to find a hotel for the night.”

Kylo looped his arm casually around Donal’s waist. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want to have to sleep in a rest stop again… Or would we?”

“We would not.”

**Author's Note:**

> [The Ohio Assman started with this article, but I've no evidence as to his exact number of legs](http://cryptozoologynews.com/ohio-resident-spots-humanoid-in-bean-field-dogman-aliens/)


End file.
